In acknowledgement of Nottingham School of Art and the wider city’s legacy of bringing pioneering experimental music to local audiences, we are delighted to welcome Nottingham’s Rammel Club to programme an evening of visionary music, sound and performance at Bonington Gallery.
Free tickets – click here to book
“The Rammel Club… is a deceptively vital outlet for underground music.”
– The Wire Magazine
Line up:
Design A Wave
Design A Wave is a long-standing electronic music act from London. At present, the sole member is Tom Hirst. Initiated in the late 1990s, the musical style of the project has varied radically in the subsequent years, taking in and responding to Hauntological pop music, computer and modular synth-based generative music and science fiction soundtrack along the way. This expansiveness in style is reflected in the variety of labels that have released recordings of Design A Wave, which includes Alien Jams, Alter, Bezirk and Rush Hour’s no label amongst many others. Tom Hirst also performs and records in a sibling project American Sound, plays keyboards in the pop/rap act Dean Rodney Jr and the Cowboys, and has collaborated on other projects with artists such as Alice Theobald, Lizzie Homersham and Ayesha Hameed.
Dawn Terry
Dawn plays slow, melancholic, optimistic music for sad people. Based in Newcastle, she is a veteran drone artist, producing work that is heavy, dreamlike, open and hypnotic; long-form minimalist landscapes characterised by an austere openness, barely punctured by hypnotic drumming or slowly intoned vocals.
Paul Paschal
Paul Paschal is an artist, writer and performer living in Nottingham, UK. Most of his work is undertaken in collaboration with Rohanne Udall, currently under the name CHA X5; they have been making performances, exhibitions and curatorial projects since 2013. Their solo exhibition at Gasleak Mountain in Nottingham – which opens on Friday 13th October and runs until the end of the month – presents some studies on managerial anxieties, demonic professions of perfect boundaries and meteoric burnout.
We are also really pleased to be presenting a one night only ‘retrospective’ of Rammel Club gig posters by Daniel Ward, going back 15+ years.
Coinciding with The Art Schools of the East Midlands exhibition, join us for a free event that explores the role of British art schools in shaping fashion, music and club culture over the last 40-50 years.
We will be joined by esteemed writer and curator Paul Gorman, who will discuss his work’s engagement with the significant role played by art schools, their educators and attendees in the broader culture.
Join us as we explore this past and consider it against the wider influence of the notion of the ‘art school’ on other forms of cultural and creative production.
Paul Gorman is a writer, curator and commentator on visual culture. His Books include The Look: Adventures in Rock & Pop Fashion, Mr Freedom – Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero, The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren and The Wild World of Barney Bubbles. The paperback of his latest book, Totally Wired: The Rise & Fall of the Music Press was published in summer 2023.
Gorman has written for many of the world’s leading publications and curated exhibitions in the UK, continental Europe and the US.
Photo of Paul Gorman by Toby Amies.
Audio/visual invites conversations about the significance and impact of visual communication (art, design, imagery, media, advertising, maps) and audio communication through music, but also the impact of language choice, and conversation. Events in this segment foreground meaning conveyed by music and art, and invite attention to global artists working in experimental ways with sound and the visual arts.
The Formations programme is an online series of free, public events led by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at Nottingham Trent University in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.
Friday 6 May 2022, 7 – 8 pm
Ever wondered how you might increase your understanding of cinema? This one-off workshop will offer you the chance to examine films and their content more clearly, giving you the tools to analyse movies and their messages. Including plenty of clips, case studies, and discussion, we will deconstruct imagery, character and visual metaphor affording you the opportunity to appreciate Hollywood and beyond with a deeper understanding of the film making craft.
This workshop is online via Microsoft Teams, spaces are limited.
Wednesday 11 May 2022, 7 – 8 pm
In this online event, artist Kate McMillan will be talking about various projects exploring the postcolonial legacies of former penal colonies, prison islands alongside the ongoing use of extraterritorial detention by countries such as Australia and the United States. We will be talking about of the notion of ‘listening with my feet’ – listening as a decolonial tool on contested ground, and the influence of indigenous thinking on McMillan growing up in Australia. We will also explore McMillan’s collaborative work with Cat Hope considering ways in which systemic silencing of those both displaced and detained as part of colonial and neocolonial modes of government might be listened to differently.
Watch this event on the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel.
Wednesday 15 June 2022, 7 – 8.30 pm
Join us for an evening of music with The Venus Bushfires, interluded with a conversation with Bethan Evans.
The Venus Bushfires is a creative collective of one and many, of which Helen Epega is the only constant member. The Nigerian-British singer-songwriter, composer and performance artist explores the ethereal sounds of the ‘hang’, the power of the talking drum and the quirks of children’s toys cross-fertilising multiple visual and musical styles.
This event will take place at Bonington Gallery.
Watch this event on the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel.
Friday 24 June 2022, 7 – 8 pm
Join us to hear Leone Ross read from her latest novel, This One Sky Day, in discussion with Bethan Evans.
Leone Ross is a novelist, short story writer, editor/copy-editor, and reviewer of fiction. She was born in Coventry England, and when she was six years old migrated with her mother to Jamaica, where she was raised and educated. After graduating from the University of the West Indies in 1990, Ross returned to England to complete a Master’s degree in International Journalism at City University, in London, where she now lives. Ross’s writing is genre-bending and world-tilting, revelling in the magical realist and surrealist.
10 randomly selected people signed up to the event will receive a free copy of This One Sky Day. This event will be online via YouTube Live.
Watch this event on the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel.
Location: Bonington Atrium and multiple venues across Nottingham
Uniting 250 artists from 25 countries over 7 days, UK Young Artist (UKYA) City Takeover (Now UK New Artists) will span multiple venues across Nottingham, immersing visitors in an array of extraordinary, innovative and contemporary work, from visual arts to performance; music; applied arts; literature; digital arts and moving image.
One of the largest biennials of national and international artists in the world, UKYA City Takeover will be discerning and cutting-edge. Presenting an exemplar survey show of contemporary art, performance and music being made today. Expect to encounter art and performance in cultural spaces as well as unusual places. From caves to cafes; markets to museums; studios to the streets – the City Takeover weaves a rich tapestry of venues across Nottingham.
Bonington Gallery is delighted to host installations, drawings, sculpture and photography from visual artists: Grace Stones, Jodie Wingham, Lucie Blissett, Luisa Turuani, Nika Kupyrova and Won Hee Nam.
Check out the full programme over on the UKYA City Takeover website.
Join us at Metronome for an audio-visual journey and immersive experience from Multimodal. The one-off event will take you from ambient tones through rhythmic melodies to an expansive crescendo.
From the sold-out four-wall projection in the One Thoresby Street Attic to the AV quadraphonic dome with Wigflex & Craig Richards, Multimodal creates bespoke, conceptual and visually immersive experiences.
For this event, a hand-picked selection of artists will be taking you from the ambient, tonal soundscape of Simone Salvatici into the minimalist synthesiser compositions of Will Plowman, to a crescendo with a brand-new AV performance from artists, Throwing Snow and Matt Woodham. The evening will conclude with a new phase conducted by the masterful hands of Lukas Wigflex, winding through experimental, ambient and beat-driven dance.
Bonington Gallery is delighted to present C/J, an exhibition of newly commissioned work by Los Angeles-based artist, musician and jewellery designer Chloé Maratta and Glasgow-based artist and musician Joanne Robertson.
Reflecting their shared interests in clothing, both artists have been invited to work with artefacts from Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) FashionMap Archive, a unique collection of garments and accessories purchased from high street retailers since 2000.
Maratta embeds her practice into her life via a process of gathering clothing and ephemera that she encounters and experiences on a daily basis. Materials are collaged into styled outfits and extended into photography, photo-collage and sculpture.
Robertson works predominantly with painting that frequently extends beyond the canvas to found objects. Presenting racks of clothing alongside her paintings, Robertson objectifies garments in order to emulate the conditions of abstract painting – form, colour, surface and materiality. She’s currently touring her music in New Zealand, and answered a few questions from Undertheradar.co.nz, in which she refers to the upcoming exhibition at Bonington Gallery, as well as discussing the process of collaborating with other artists, and the strong link between her music and visual practices.
Through art production, music and fashion, both artists convey an immediacy and irreverence towards various forms of cultural and social hierarchy, making the involvement of NTU’s high-street fashion archive all the more poignant.
Exhibition resources:
Established in 2016 by a collective of eight, The Community is a Paris-based multidisciplinary art institute dedicated to promoting experimental and progressive artistic practice through interdisciplinary programming. Featuring Ethan Assouline, Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, David Bernstein, Tenant of Culture, Cyrus Goberville, Philippe Hallais and Ruby Hoette.
The Community’s founding was prompted by a long-standing need for a shared space and platform to stimulate ideas and facilitate collaboration across different creative disciplines including art, fashion, music and publishing.
Extending their methodology to the UK, The Community Live in Nottingham transforms Bonington Gallery into a site for learning, experimentation and production through a programme of free to attend weekly workshops and activities delivered by a specially invited group of internationally prominent artists and creatives, accompanied by members of The Community. Over the course of a month, participants will create work within the space whilst reflecting and developing upon previous outcomes – building content through experience and accumulation. Participation will be open to all, reflecting The Community’s desire to ingratiate their practice through dialogue and collaboration with local communities.
The exhibition will culminate with a music and performance event at the gallery and in the city with an opportunity to view completed works on Friday 29 March and Saturday 30 March. Details regarding these activities will be announced soon.
The gallery will be open for viewing throughout the exhibition period, but due to the nature of this being an ‘exhibition-as-process’, we suggest following updates via The Community’s instagram account and on the exhibition website to maximise your experience.
Ethan Assouline, Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, David Bernstein, Tenant of Culture, Cyrus Goberville, Philippe Hallais, Ruby Hoette
Monday 4 – Saturday 9 March 2019
Ego Altar by David Bernstein
Monday 11 – Saturday 16 March 2019
Ruby Hoette’s Patternmapping Residency
Wednesday 13 – Friday 15 March 2019
Workshop by Tenant of Culture
Monday 18 – Saturday 23 March 2019
Anna’s Weekend by Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann
Monday 25 – Saturday 30 March 2019
Writing Club by Ethan Assouline and Philippe Hallais
Come celebrate the finale of The Community Live in Nottingham with an opportunity to view all of the completed works produced throughout the four weeks of workshops plus a music and sound performance.
The evening will consist of two parts: A live performance by Philippe Hallais that will bring together audio-recorded outcomes from the outcome of week four, the ‘Writing Club’ with artist Ethan Assouline; followed by a Nottingham edition of ‘Permanent Cuts’ – a multidisciplinary and experimental live music session co-curated by Cyrus Goberville of Collapsing Market.
The event will be followed by an off-site event at the King Billy pub in Sneinton with DJ sets by Low Jack, Cyrus, plus others.
Elijah’s talk will address the interrelations between visual art and music culture, as well as plotting his own experience of working in grime and the history of grime. He will also discuss the importance of inquisitiveness and creativity in work and explore how applying organisational skills learnt in the arts and culture sector could be used in music programming, and vice versa.
Elijah’s lecture will be followed by a Q+A, hosted by Jonathan P. Watts, visiting lecturer in BA (Hons) Photography.
Elijah is a DJ and promoter, and along with Skilliam, co-founder of the grime record label Butterz. In these various roles Elijah has travelled the world and shared stages with some of grime’s biggest names. For six years he hosted his own grime show on Rinse FM. Over the past year Elijah has been Associate Artistic Director at Lighthouse Arts, Brighton, an arts and culture agency producing, supporting and presenting new art, film, music, design and games. Supported by Arts Council England, this initiative promotes diversity in the arts, of which, in the UK, only a small percent of artistic directors are black and minority ethnic.
In 2014, grime began to dominate popular music. In 2015, the Tottenham-based MC Skepta beat both David Bowie and Radiohead to the Mercury Prize. When Stormzy re-recorded the single “Shut Up”, originally a viral YouTube video, it entered the 2015 Christmas UK Singles Chart at number eighteen. Since then, grime has sound-tracked the so-called ‘youthquake’ that, among other things, has been credited with blocking Theresa May and the Conservatives’ hoped-for landslide in last year’s general election. Grime is the music of a generation.
Ashley Holmes’ film Everybody’s Hustling will be played on loop all day on Tuesday 15 May, from 10 am to 5 pm, then played once at the start of this event. View the complete listings for the Video Days: Week Five screenings.